E 147: Do You Need to Love Yourself Before Loving Others?

Amy (00:00.974)
Thank you.

Sarah Simone (00:04.58)
I can hear the mic.

Amy (00:11.942)
Like the movement of it just like this Can you hear it right now What needs to go here it needs to go here then how about if I do this can you hear me well

Sarah Simone (00:12.316)
Are you gonna be able to sit like that? It's like the, when you like this.

Sarah Simone (00:23.256)
Yes. OK.

Sarah Simone (00:31.516)
We'll get where you're gonna sit.

Amy (00:33.518)
I'm going to have to move and sit up. I also have it so it's not Omni. It's like right here on me.

Sarah Simone (00:40.816)
There you go. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good.

Amy (00:47.179)
Okay.

Amy (00:50.702)
It's definitely not as cool looking.

Amy (00:55.679)
Uh oh.

Sarah Simone (00:57.208)
What? Oh no.

Amy (01:02.562)
It wasn't even a full one which means it's coming back.

Amy (01:09.606)
Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Unqualified Therapist.

Sarah Simone (01:14.992)
Are you all doing okay out there? Is everybody surviving the winter? It's so cold here.

Amy (01:23.306)
It's very, very cold. I have not left the house today. It's so cold. Yeah.

Sarah Simone (01:27.724)
Neither did I. It's so cold. Our kids are in the same school district, so school was canceled today and they had to, but they had remote learning, so that was fun. So both of us working from home and trying to get our children online for their classes, it was just a fun day.

Amy (01:47.934)
Yeah, it's a lot and I forget that it was like that every single day for a long time. You know, people were remote and their kids were remote. And I think a lot of times like, I don't know how it's feasible, like especially if you have a job that you have to go in for now. How do you even do that? I don't know. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure a lot of things that are expected of me as a mom. I'm not quite sure. Like...

Sarah Simone (01:54.449)
Yes.

Sarah Simone (02:07.624)
Exactly. I'm not sure.

Amy (02:16.694)
For example, on a school day that they don't have school, getting my daughter to practice at 1 in the afternoon, I'm like, that's not the end of the work day. Where are we? How does that happen? So it's interesting, to say the least.

Sarah Simone (02:28.082)
No.

Sarah Simone (02:34.972)
How do you guys make it work? Do you have any life hacks for us? We'll take them. Take them all.

Amy (02:41.782)
Yeah, I think that a lot of it is like people just have a lot of family that like lives around them that they can call for help. And I just, I don't know, maybe also to, I have to give some grace because like when I before I had kids, I made decisions about things that had included kids with activities as a teacher, as you know, someone doing after school activities. Like I did not consider parents work schedules because it just didn't even occur to me.

Sarah Simone (03:10.068)
Mm-hmm. Right, right. Oh, gosh, people. But winter is here. It is in full swing. And it has hit the, like, Midwest to East Coast. And there is snow everywhere. And it's insane. And I am cold. And I just want to stay inside covered in a blanket. But what this is doing is having me look online a lot more.

Amy (03:12.383)
So.

Sarah Simone (03:38.98)
So Amy and I are starting a new segment called TNN, the not news.

Amy (03:45.61)
Yeah, yeah, we just made that up and now it's a thing. Because we said so.

Sarah Simone (03:49.407)
And now it's a thing. Exactly. So the TNN is what we're going to share with you are things that we see that's not really news but you know.

Amy (03:59.955)
It's like something we've either seen.

Sarah Simone (04:01.24)
I forget what you said, I wrote it down. Shit.

Amy (04:06.328)
It's not news, but it's living in our brains. It's something we've seen, heard, read, that we can't stop thinking about.

Sarah Simone (04:16.016)
Absolutely. So is it okay if I go first?

Amy (04:21.376)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (04:22.528)
All right, so this one that I saw is on an account on Instagram called Scary Mommy. And the headline says, Gen Z teens are covering their noses in family photos, and parents are totally confused. So I was like, oh yeah, I need to know what's going on here. What's happening? Why are people covering their noses? And it's really simple. It's for privacy's sake. So we didn't have.

And our parents didn't have social media to post our pictures everywhere. They just took our pictures on big chunky cameras. We printed some of them out, put them in scrapbooks and that was it. Like they didn't go any further. Maybe exactly. Or they ended up in just envelopes somewhere in a bin in your basement storage room, like mine are. Yeah. But we are all over social media and you know, Gen Z's parents are, and they say they're done with their faces being posted by their parents without consent.

Amy (04:58.61)
Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Sarah Simone (05:17.956)
We kind of talked about this a little bit at one point, about how we have to rethink how we're posting to social media, and I don't know, we didn't really get into it. I made a very conscious choice because of some things that were going on with my kids specifically, like with some bullying and things. So we said, okay, no more kids on social media. So they just don't, we don't put anything up. I will ask Willow, is it okay if I put this up and she'll say yes or no?

And so we just kind of go from there. But my son, it's a hard no. So we just don't do it anymore. But yeah, they're called, they're participating in what is called the quote nose cover, which is a photo trend made viral by influencers, um, Paris and Tyson fury. I don't know who these people are, but they have a 13 year old teen and that person was covering their face in the shot and other kids saw it and decided that they were going to cover their faces and photos they didn't want to be a part of either.

Amy (05:52.876)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (06:13.448)
They're still trying to appease their parents by standing for the photos. And they're covering their face, their nose. So it's not like their whole face so that their parents are like, what are you doing? But if they just cover their nose, it's enough of an obstruction that they're not really showing up on social media. So that is the trend now.

Amy (06:21.576)
Yeah.

Amy (06:32.438)
The other one is like, they'll do the peace sign right in front of their nose. I'm doing it right now. And so it like also covers up quite a bit. But yeah, I have seen it and I was quite confused about that. I will say that I do, I have started to ask for permission just because, mostly because my young one, my seven-year-old Avery, was like, is this going on Facebook? He's like, you're always posting pictures of me. And I said, okay, well, then no, we'll just.

Sarah Simone (06:36.769)
Mmm.

Sarah Simone (06:57.836)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (07:02.21)
hold on to it, it's just for me. And then he's like, well, that one can go on, but not that one. And the same thing with Lily, she tells me which ones, she's like, that's a funny picture, but it does not go up. And that's fine. I will say I've told Sarah before, I was like, man, I was like, people really appreciate pictures of my children more than me. Like, Sarah and I have been on Talk Pittsburgh, what, seven times, eight times, I don't know, I share all the time about it.

Sarah Simone (07:08.785)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (07:13.893)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (07:25.528)
I'm going to go to bed.

Sarah Simone (07:29.62)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (07:32.15)
I don't know, maybe 50 people like it. My daughter goes on and there's like hundreds. And I'm like, who are these people? I go in to look, I'm like, I don't even know half these people. So it is interesting because especially on Facebook, people really enjoy watching the lives of your children. And I don't know what that's about. Unless they're just trying to keep up with you. A lot of times it's distant relatives or friends and, you know.

Sarah Simone (07:50.109)
Yeah.

Amy (07:59.774)
I don't know, but I do think it is interesting and I think it's important to ask permission, which we would have never thought about a couple years ago.

Sarah Simone (08:07.236)
Right, yeah. And when they're younger, we don't really think about it. And one of the reasons that was listed in the article as well, they asked, are you being bullied? And they said, no, but if you post that picture online, I might be. And so they're worried about posting the pictures and getting bullied because of the picture that's on there, for some reason one way or another. And I can attest to that. There's a specific picture.

Amy (08:20.915)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (08:34.14)
just of my son with his dog and people taking it out of proportion, like blown it out of proportion. Cause kids are cruel. Yeah.

Amy (08:42.762)
Yeah, because kids are definitely cruel. So, okay, well, that's a trend.

Sarah Simone (08:48.932)
That is a trend. That's one of our first TNN.

Amy (08:52.002)
First TNN, not news.

Sarah Simone (08:58.482)
What not news do you have?

Amy (08:59.598)
Oh, whatnot news. So I've been down the documentary rabbit hole. I love them. I find them fascinating. And I always have. Recently, the few that I've been watching, I am very curious because I'm coming out of it not knowing who's bad and who's good. And I love that in a way because, and these aren't murder ones, so I mean, clearly the murder is bad. So.

Sarah Simone (09:28.136)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Amy (09:31.351)
I really like that because nobody's really bad or all bad or all good, right? So it's the gray in between when documentaries kind of go, when documentaries capture that. I think that it's much more representative of our life, right? So the gray times, like everything's kind of in the middle. We're not all one thing.

Sarah Simone (09:50.044)
Hmm.

Sarah Simone (09:54.568)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that we're stopping viewing things from a black and white perspective. And I think that's cool, too, because most documentaries are pretty biased one way or another. They show, they're like, this is, it is clear that they believe this one view of it. So it's really cool to hear that those are starting to become more two-sided.

Amy (10:05.782)
They are. Mm-hmm.

Amy (10:18.002)
Yeah, so the one I watched most recently is on Max, which for everyone who's in the know, it's no longer HBO, it's just Max. I have whatever. And it's called Savior Complex. And it is so interesting. And right away going in, I was like, I'm going to hate this woman. I know it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Sarah Simone (10:27.684)
I'm sorry.

Amy (10:44.938)
And then as I was watching, I was like, ooh, I don't know. I mean, is she really doing anything bad? And also the fact that as a 19 year old who was so deep into the church, the evangelical church, my dream, first let me tell you what it's about. It's about a 19 year old graduates from high school and she's been going to church her whole life, but she was homeschooled and in church, of course they're talking about missions because that's what.

everyone talks about, especially in the evangelical world. So she felt, you know, even saying it makes me really, she felt a call, a call from God to go to Africa. Now, in the 2000s, early 2000s, late 90s, this was a big thing. Everyone went to Africa to save the children. And it was on my heart, insert barfing sounds,

Sarah Simone (11:22.053)
I know what you're gonna say. Mm-hmm. She did, yes, she did.

Amy (11:42.754)
from 19 to maybe, I don't know, 25 to go to Africa. I tried a million different ways to go. I tried so many different things. I really felt like I was basically supposed to do what this woman went and did and take care of the children. Okay, yeah. It sounds absolutely ridiculous now, and I get it. And so the reason that...

I have a little bit of compassion for her is because if anyone had filmed me at 1920, 21, whatever, in those years, there was some things that I did that were like a little questionable for the church, for the fact that I wanted to save someone's soul. And so I think that she just was doing what she thought was best. And really she opened up almost like a hospital for...

Sarah Simone (12:22.564)
Right.

Sarah Simone (12:27.215)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (12:38.038)
a nutrition center, but then it ended up becoming more like a hospital for malnourished children. And then kind of, we don't know the way that it tells the story both ways. We don't know how much liberty she took without having any medical training and how much, yeah, but she did have Ugandan doctors and nurses there. So we don't really know. The story is I could go either way on what it is.

Sarah Simone (12:53.02)
Eww.

Sarah Simone (13:03.333)
Right.

Amy (13:07.458)
But the funny thing, and I say that like not ha ha, but is that there was a side story about this nonprofit organization called No White Saviors. And it's two Ugandan women and then a recovered missionary. And I was like, yeah, like go, go. All the way until the end when I was like, hold up. Like, I feel as though they're doing

just as much damage as they think she was doing. And they're also being corrupt now because they're getting so much notoriety and power. And then they ended up like in the very, very end kicking the white woman out. It was just because she, it was, they were like, and they ended up calling her all the same names they called the other lady that they were like against in the hospital. So it's a complicated story, but the idea of the fact that

white Christians have tried to like colonize or save African humans is a problem. Period. End of story. I don't know if beating this woman up was the answer. I think we go to the institutionalized missionary idea all the way back at churches and maybe that's it.

Some people would say that she's seriously like Satan. I would not say that. I would say she's just someone who really just wanted to help and do good and then got a little bit astray.

Sarah Simone (14:42.424)
Misguided.

Amy (14:44.154)
misguided. There are a lot

Sarah Simone (14:46.964)
not informed well, like it sounds like she just was not informed well enough to go do something like that but believed that she was.

Amy (14:54.482)
Right, what's the quote? God does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called.

Sarah Simone (15:01.064)
Mm-hmm. Preach, Sister Amy. Just didn't seem to not have an end to her life.

Amy (15:05.619)
Do you know I have my hands up right now? So, yeah, so that's the quote everybody kind of goes off of as missionaries. And...

Sarah Simone (15:15.253)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (15:17.63)
I think there was also a lot of like reflection, self reflection of my own life and the things that I did all in the name of Jesus that I just want to like scratch my head about and be like, thank God. That's funny that I'm thanking God, but thank whatever that there was not social media or videos or any sort of anything of me doing these things because people could have blown that out of proportion and been like, you know.

Sarah Simone (15:47.652)
Right, right. I mean, it took me the longest time. I didn't understand for a while until I really researched and looked into it why things like that can be damaging, more damaging to their communities than, the intention behind it I know is not to do that. So I think you just need to have more education. I didn't understand that. I didn't understand why Tom's shoes, the one for one was not good because it's really,

Amy (16:06.431)
Right.

Sarah Simone (16:16.568)
impacting their community, the people down there who are making shoes and who are the ones that, like Tom's shoes, when you buy a pair of shoes, they give a pair of shoes to someone in Africa. You know that, right?

Amy (16:16.866)
I don't.

Amy (16:25.842)
Oh, I know, but you're just giving me new information. You're giving me new information that it's bad. I didn't know that.

Sarah Simone (16:33.776)
But then I learned about how it affects their economy, basically, and is interrupting and disrupting that flow of income to people who are doing that for their living. So anyways, it's like knowing, just having to learn these things. So right, her intention probably was, I haven't seen it, but her intention was probably to do as much good as she possibly could.

Amy (16:39.497)
Ow.

Amy (16:47.331)
So.

Amy (16:57.994)
And even the doctor who ran the actual hospital in Uganda said that. He said, I don't think she meant evil, but what she could have done with these hundreds of thousands of dollars that she raised is given it to our hospital and then come and volunteered for us. That would have been more helpful than doing your own thing. And when they show you all the little red dots in Uganda of all of the nonprofits, the Christian nonprofits,

Sarah Simone (17:08.476)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, exactly. Mm-hmm.

Amy (17:28.086)
the entire map is filled.

Sarah Simone (17:31.016)
It's like the map has chickenpox.

Amy (17:33.738)
Yeah, exactly.

Sarah Simone (17:34.852)
Yeah. Uh, those, that's some, those are some deep, the not news.

Amy (17:42.774)
That was a little too deep, sorry. That was just, and that's also a lot of self-reflection. Man, I am a recovering evangelical.

Sarah Simone (17:53.172)
Oh, no. You broke up there, so I think I probably talked over you. I apologize. I didn't know that you were frozen.

Sarah Simone (18:03.068)
Sorry.

Amy (18:03.505)
Oh, I missed you talking over me.

Sarah Simone (18:06.272)
I, cause I, yeah, cause I think I probably froze for you then. Whatever you said coming out when you came out of it, you said, I, um, sorry, that's some self reflection. So whatever you said before that, I talked over. I'm sorry.

Amy (18:07.755)
Wait, which part?

Amy (18:19.646)
I don't remember so it's okay.

Sarah Simone (18:24.04)
Okay.

Amy (18:24.51)
I wanna ask you, and I don't know if we should keep it in, but I'm like dying to know. It could be interesting though. Like what's the weirdest or most...

Sarah Simone (18:28.238)
What?

Amy (18:35.038)
like most, what's the word, thing you did as an evangelical to save a soul? Like what is the cringiest thing that you did?

Sarah Simone (18:49.948)
Well...

Amy (18:52.15)
You're frozen. That's how cringy it was.

Sarah Simone (18:53.1)
Um, this was actually like after it sort of like crept back in to me, um, at one point, because I don't know if you remember when American Idol, the first like seasons, they were using part of their time to show orphans in Africa. And I like lost my mind. Like I was in literal sobs.

Amy (19:12.351)
Yes.

Sarah Simone (19:20.14)
like hunched over, like we need to adopt these children, like holding Randy's hands, like what can we please, like yeah, it was bad. Like we, yeah, it was really bad, very, mm-hmm.

Amy (19:34.41)
Wow.

Sarah Simone (19:36.108)
Yeah. So that was like a relapsed moment of, you know, White Savior coming in and just wanting to like make everything right and better and, I don't know, it was not good. But I don't even know if I wanna keep that in. Because.

Amy (19:37.494)
Wow.

Amy (19:50.247)
Yeah.

Amy (19:55.392)
You can take it out.

Sarah Simone (19:57.04)
Oh you froze again. Shit.

Amy (19:59.21)
You froze for half of yours.

Sarah Simone (20:01.357)
Okay, poop.

Amy (20:03.202)
So that's why I just kind of, I caught the end of it, but then I was surprised that Randy was there. So I was like, what did I miss in the beginning here?

Sarah Simone (20:06.202)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (20:10.184)
Oh yeah, yeah. Anyway, what about you? I'm gonna take mine out, so you don't have, so if you wanna share it, I won't take it out. Or I will take it out, unless you don't want me to.

Amy (20:22.822)
No, I'm not doing, I'm not, don't keep mine in if we don't keep yours in. Do I think I've told you and it was going to the strip clubs.

Sarah Simone (20:25.516)
I won't.

Sarah Simone (20:33.601)
No, you did not tell me.

Sarah Simone (20:37.973)
Oh my God, I love you.

Amy (20:38.864)
KUH

Amy (20:43.178)
Hmmm

Sarah Simone (20:45.316)
Oh my god.

Amy (20:50.216)
Um.

Amy (20:53.858)
I went to this, I went, I went, this was in the time that we did this thing called, I think it was like no strings attached or something, which is bullshit because Jesus has so many strings. But sometimes we would walk them all and just give out like bags of candy and gum and things, no strings attached with the.

Sarah Simone (21:08.956)
so many.

Sarah Simone (21:20.392)
sure.

Amy (21:21.186)
card for the church inside. Yeah. Anyways, so then to escalate that situation, I went to Bath and Body Works and like made baskets of like, you know, like, I don't know, oceans and shit. And then fucking marched my ass right in to and I'm talking not as not like a strip club downtown.

Sarah Simone (21:37.784)
lotions and shit. Yeah.

Amy (21:49.814)
downtown. I'm talking about a strip club off the side of the highway, boarded up, like not... Yes, that is the kind of strip club that I walked into with my baskets and I asked if I could go put them... If I could go give them to the girls in the dressing rooms.

Sarah Simone (21:50.972)
Don't hum.

Amy (22:15.71)
Um, yep. Yep.

Sarah Simone (22:15.953)
That is so great. I absolutely love that.

Amy (22:23.934)
So then one of them came out to say thank you or something like that. And so we were sitting down talking and like, I had enough like...

I don't know. I had enough like with it-ness that I was like, this is fucking weird. So like they're like grab a drink or whatever. And like everybody else like got coke and I was like, I'm gonna get a fucking beer because fuck. Like this is already weird. And I just remember being like such the odd person out getting a beer. But also feeling like this is already weird. And it was, I don't know. It was just like, I don't know. I just. And I mean, was I gonna save?

Sarah Simone (22:52.463)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (23:01.709)
Yeah.

Amy (23:09.626)
The stripper. Also, what's, there's, also my mindset on all of that has changed so much that like, how dare I talk about savior complex? How the fuck dare I think that like she doesn't know Jesus because she's dancing. Like, man, white people.

Sarah Simone (23:25.006)
Yeah. Right, right.

Sarah Simone (23:31.4)
Christian people.

Amy (23:33.47)
Yeah, I should just say Christian people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh my God.

Sarah Simone (23:35.144)
Mm-hmm. Because it's how we're taught. It's literally like what we're taught.

Amy (23:43.754)
Yeah. OK, so we're cutting all that out. And you're going to come and talk about the post. And then we'll talk about our significant others.

Sarah Simone (23:46.185)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (23:53.016)
Yeah, what post am I doing? The chewing, okay. One more not news story, and then we're gonna move on to what we are here to talk about today. And that is a headline that I saw that was like, I'm hallelujah, I'm not alone. And it reads, nearly one in five adults in the world have mesophonia, phobia of specific sounds.

Amy (23:54.134)
The chewing.

Sarah Simone (24:18.96)
People who have mesophonia experience significant negative responses to sounds. These sounds can include chewing, sniffing, slurping, oh my God, swallowing and more. Oh, I can't even like think about it. It's making me like feel like I'm gonna throw up. This creates a fight or flight response that triggers anger and a desire to escape. Mesophonia is a real disorder that can significantly impact a person's ability to function, particularly in social settings.

Auditory distraction via white noise or headphones and cognitive behavioral therapy have been used with some success to improve this condition. Amy and I both suffer from mesophonia. When I say suffer, I mean it because when people chew in front of me, I... Oh!

Sarah Simone (25:08.697)
It's so hard.

Amy (25:10.755)
It's so, so bad. There was a post that talked about it. I saw that you liked, and then I did as well, and God, I can't find it now, but I sent it to Mike because I don't know what's wrong with me, but when he chews, because he has his nightly snack in bed, if anyone could see my face.

Sarah Simone (25:35.24)
I know your face is great.

Amy (25:37.634)
When he choose, like another person takes over my body and the look I give him of straight death. And so then he tries to go like this.

Sarah Simone (25:43.496)
100%.

Sarah Simone (25:49.382)
YAH!

Amy (25:55.499)
And that's basically me showing Sarah right now that he tries to choose slower

Sarah Simone (26:02.132)
Nope. No. Slower is not the answer.

Amy (26:05.447)
to think that would help. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sarah Simone (26:08.288)
No, no, not the answer. Oh, it's hard, it's rough, and I feel bad about it. I don't want to have this, I don't want to feel that way, especially because I didn't know that it wasn't like common. I thought everybody had this. I thought it was like a total, like everyone can't stand the sound. But then I thought, well, that can't be true because some people chew with their mouths open, no problem, it's not even a big deal.

Amy (26:34.038)
or they don't even realize that people are chewing. And I think that when I eat a meal, I don't recognize it. I think it's like when I'm, this is so selfish, when I'm not eating and it's someone else eating.

Sarah Simone (26:39.376)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (26:50.538)
that I realized that like, it's super annoying.

Sarah Simone (26:56.008)
Okay, I lost you for that whole thing. It's usually there though, right? Yeah, yeah.

Amy (26:59.939)
It's usually there though, right? It's fine then. But I really wanna.

Sarah Simone (27:06.516)
That was our not news segment. Thanks for getting the not news with us.

Amy (27:13.706)
Oh, here we go. I found it. Hold on.

Sarah Simone (27:16.665)
Okay.

Amy (27:18.798)
Can you do that again after I say this? So the post that Sarah and I both liked or laughed at or whatever and I also sent to Mike, it's a picture, it's like a video of the man chewing and it says over it, marriage is funny because I would literally die for this man, but if he doesn't stop chewing so loud while I'm trying to watch my show, I might help him meet his maker today.

Sarah Simone (27:47.398)
Oh yeah. Oh yes!

Sarah Simone (27:52.863)
you gonna meet your maker?

Amy (27:56.114)
Like, I don't know, it's a trig, a rage, rage.

Sarah Simone (27:56.352)
Oh, a rage. It's a white hot rage that just comes up, yes. And I feel bad. I don't want to feel like that anymore. Help us. Ha ha ha.

Amy (28:04.467)
Straight up rage.

Amy (28:09.342)
No, I know. Please. Maybe earphones.

Sarah Simone (28:14.657)
There are those little ones that go in your ear that you can still hear what's going on. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'm gonna have to check those out.

Amy (28:17.087)
Oh, it was earbuds. Yes.

I keep getting that ad. There's ones to lower the sound for people like me who are sensitive to sounds. I don't know, maybe.

Sarah Simone (28:23.071)
Uh huh.

Sarah Simone (28:28.057)
Yes.

If you tried them, let us know which ones are the best ones to get.

Amy (28:34.73)
If you own the company, let us send us a pair. We'll tell everybody about them.

Sarah Simone (28:37.624)
Sponsor us. We will tell everyone. Well that was your not news and thanks for hanging through that. We are going to talk today about something that I think is I don't want to say controversial because it's not controversial but it's like a very well known saying and something that has been said for so long and now

other doctors, psychologists, therapists, so forth, are coming out and saying that maybe it's not the right wording and we shouldn't be saying it anymore. And that is with February here and Valentine's Day around the corner, and so love is on everybody's minds, and it's everywhere, it's unavoidable, but that is you can't love others until you love yourself. And so that is our topic for today. And we have two sides of the coin here, so.

We love when this happens, when we don't agree. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know where you wanna start, where you wanna start with this.

Amy (29:35.121)
It's not often, but when it does, it's great.

Amy (29:44.322)
I'll start with you sending me that text. I was like, what the fuck? I was like, yeah, of course you. Like, why are you disagreeing with that? So I was like, I don't even know where to start this research because I don't even believe this is a thing that people could be against. So of course I looked it up and saw all the different sides of the coin of what people were saying. And so I'm gonna let you start because you opened this can of worms, lady.

Sarah Simone (29:58.902)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (30:10.02)
I did open the can of worms. So I don't feel, I am on the side that you don't have to, and let me say it like this, you don't have to be fully in a space of self-love to love others. And I think that that's kind of where the...

it lies in the disagreement because the saying is like, you must love yourself before you can love others. And I just don't agree that that's completely true. And I think because I have felt self-loathing before and I've been in a space of self-loathing and did not understand how anyone could love me, but I very deeply loved people in my life. And so that is where my mindset began to change. And

I have only been in that spot recently. And so before that, I would have agreed and said, oh, you have to love yourself. So I was like, OK, well, I'm no expert. So I'm not the person that can say whether or not this is true. And so I'm going to find some experts. So first, we text Dr. Katie. And should I give her opinion first? Her response.

So Dr. Katie texts us back. I was like, I just want to get your way in. Let me know how you feel about this, and let's hear what you have to say. So she said, this is quote, fuck yes. I hate. I hate the quote, you have to love yourself first BS for the most part. How do we learn to love ourselves in relationships with others? I said, yes, I'm so glad to hear this. I agree.

She said, it's a reciprocal process. And then I love Amy's response. Oh, fun, I could be on the opposing side of this one.

Sarah Simone (32:10.972)
But her, I know that was a great response. Dr. Katie also says, how do we heal a relational trauma in healing relationship? And you know, so she just is kind of on that side of it. She said, no that's a take that up. She didn't say anything else. It was a rather discussion. Okay, so other people that I found and I won't read all of mine yet. I'll let you jump in here obviously. I'm not gonna take over. But

Amy (32:11.771)
I was like, uh, disagree.

Sarah Simone (32:40.768)
There was a, and all of my articles are from Psychology Today. I probably should have found another source.

Amy (32:46.989)
I was gonna say, I bet we have the same article to prove different points.

Sarah Simone (32:51.42)
There is one article that shows both sides. And so I don't know if that's, you probably have it too. Yeah. But there's one article that I did want to talk about and that's from Psychology Today. And it is from a section on there called Stronger in the Broken Places. And it's called Myth, You Can't Love Someone Till You Love Yourself. And the one part of here that just like really stood out to me was quote, we grow most while we're receiving an abundance of love.

Receiving high quality support encourages the process of growing into our essential being. Rather than self love coming first, the process of learning to love both self and other is circular. We become self loving quickly and most efficiently while we are both actively giving and receiving love. And I really liked that because it just helped me to view it in the way because. It I always kind of took a.

to that saying because I had, when I was in that spot. So like when I was feeling self-loathing, I was like, well, does that mean that I don't love my husband? Does that mean I don't love my kids? And it made me feel even more self-loathing. And it just kind of put me in this spiral of like, do I not know what love is? Do I not know how to love people? And so I just, it caused my mental health status in that moment.

to decline further and it just really took me to a darker place and so since that time, I have been looking for research to the opposite. And what I will say though is when you look for something, most likely you're gonna find it. So, you know, it doesn't mean anything, but I will say that some of these are doctors that are agreeing with me, but here we go. That's my side of the story. I have some more.

articles and some more things to share, but let's talk through both sides of this first.

Amy (34:52.49)
Yes, and I'll start by saying, obviously, just like the last thing I spoke about, gray is really where we land, right? In the middle. But the gut instincts that I have is to land on the side that you do need to love yourself before you can love others. And...

Sarah Simone (34:59.26)
Sure, yeah.

Amy (35:12.886)
for lots of reasons and I think it's primarily my life story and my own experience. And that's not just with my husband, that's with friends, that's with family, that's with everyone. I think that becoming a whole healthy person is the number one most important thing that you can do in.

your life. I say this, I should just use myself in my life because the way that I love other people then is just so much better. And by that, I mean I have no expectations, no boundaries, no grudges, like those sorts of things that happen when I'm not really liking myself or loving myself. I tend to...

fall back into unhealthy patterns of loving others, expecting things in return, getting my feelings hurt for no reason, taking things too personal. Those are like light, right? So, you know, because otherwise the heavier stuff is when you become codependent with someone because you aren't really loving yourself. And I think that I...

didn't fully know who I was or fully come to understand and love myself until after my relationship ended, right? So after my husband died, which is just a wild thing because you're in a relationship for 17, 18, whatever, 19 years, and then you don't really even know who you are because you're both so unhealthy that like you're both trying to like.

get to healthy places and do, it's just, it's super complicated. And so I think that for me, I don't have the space to be with people who are in such an unhealthy place. That is not like they're depressed, they're anxious. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this like pit of like,

Sarah Simone (37:02.376)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (37:24.598)
destruction or I'm just not going to look at my problems or I'm going to brush it, wherever they are, everybody's journey is different, right? So this is just my boundary of saying that, you know, I can't, I don't feel loved by that. I don't feel loved by that person when they're in that place, because what they're giving me can sometimes feel icky, like as if...

I'm gonna owe somebody something or I'm gonna say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. I don't know, weirdness. So that's like in a nutshell, I think where the gut like, oh no, I totally agree with that came from. But then I did read probably the other article you read on Psychology Today and I did really like what it said that it's easier to say and much more of a baseline to say when you like yourself, right? So, and

Sarah Simone (38:17.772)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (38:19.61)
from there, if you like yourself, then you're going to make good choices for yourself. You're going to set some boundaries. You're going to have healthy habits. You're going to maybe go to therapy. You're going to do all the things that help you become a better person. And so, just switching that term from like or from love to like, I think does work because

Amy (38:48.574)
It hasn't, again, it hasn't been, it's only been in the past few years that I can say I like 1,100% love and like myself. Do I all the time? No, because what the article talks about, which is, God, is it so true? In times of stress, don't we just go straight back to that unhealthy version of ourselves? And even just this weekend I did it and I was like, oh, who was that? And it's just this like,

Sarah Simone (39:11.192)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (39:16.957)
Oh no.

Amy (39:18.218)
You just, it's a, if you're not, you know, if you're not like fully in a good place, it's just an instinct. It just comes out because it's what your easiest thing to do is to go back to who that person was. And so, you know, just reflecting and getting yourself back to the other place can help, but.

Amy (39:39.543)
I just feel like I love people better when I love myself. And if I had waited, I probably would have never had any relationships. So I get that too on your side of things. And no one would have ever told, no one would have ever been able to convince Scott and I of that. We were gonna be together come hell or high water, even though we're the two of the most unhealthy people, didn't matter to us. So, you know, through the process,

Sarah Simone (39:52.569)
Right.

Amy (40:07.734)
we did refine each other, I guess, in a sense. And some of it was healthy and some of it wasn't. And I don't know, I just think that.

Amy (40:22.678)
I don't know. I just really feel like where I'm at today, I strongly stand by. I want to be in a relationship with people who also have that like for themselves because they're less likely to do weird, manipulative, strange, damaging things.

Sarah Simone (40:47.64)
Yeah, I mean, I totally see that point of view for sure. And I don't disagree. I think we are both probably in an area of gray with this. And maybe it's the definite wording that has me saying like, uh-uh. I just don't like the like, you must love yourself before you can love others. It's like the definitive parts of that. Because I think that can come and go in waves too.

and go, I don't love myself all the time. You know, I do sometimes. And you are right though, when I do love myself, I love others better. I am definitely better at it. I agree to like, I cannot be in a relationship, whether that be, you know, a friendship or romantic or otherwise a relationship that is entirely like self-deprecating. Like that.

Amy (41:43.082)
Oh, I didn't even think about that because that's a whole nother level that I really can't handle.

Sarah Simone (41:46.512)
That's a whole, yeah. The self-deprecation is exhausting. It's draining. And I didn't realize how much it affected me until I watched this comedy special, honestly, which was wild for this to happen. But oh my gosh, I'm blanking on her name. I'm going to find it. Maybe you know it. She did the comedy special, Nenet.

Hannah Gatsby, I found it. Okay, a comedy special by Hannah Gatsby called Nanette, and she spends most of the special, it's hilarious. Like it's so funny, but I also cried because she's trying to turn the narrative of comedy because a lot of comedy is self-deprecation. And a lot of like previous comedy, you know, it's like older comedy, was people talking about themselves, like calling themselves.

fat, calling themselves ugly, saying these things and pointing out their flaws to make other people laugh. And so she just spent the special saying, I refuse to do that anymore as a comedian and I'm not going to do it anymore. And I'm hoping that affects you too. And after that, it really, because I was horrible with self-deprecation, because it was my own insecurities that I was going to use it and I was going to point it out to you before you could point it out to me.

or I was going to point it out to you before you could, or because I knew you were thinking it, even though, you know, who fucking knows? You could never have had that thought in your head about me ever, but here I am planting it now in your head and telling you how to not love me and how to look at me negatively. And it just changed my whole view on things. That was like five or six years ago that she did that. And that definitely changed my whole thoughts on the self-deprecation portion and.

I tried to be really careful about it going forward. And it is something that is exhausting. And there are people in my life that I have pulled back from a lot because of it, because it is really hard to listen to because it feels like an ongoing cycle of like, pouring out and taking on, like taking on that negativity and having to pour out your own like, energy and positivity to counter it. It's a lot. So, yeah.

Amy (43:57.842)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amy (44:05.078)
Yeah. And thinking about that just being one thing that people can do if they're not in a healthy place and not loving themselves. Thinking about all the other things, and I guess I could just, it could be romantic or relational, it doesn't really matter. But there's that component of like, then you're gonna help and then you're gonna fix. And then you're going to like,

Sarah Simone (44:22.223)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (44:31.505)
Yes.

Amy (44:33.518)
watch them falling in on their face, even though you're trying and, you know, and that, how do you not help and how do you not fix and what does that boundary look like and is it your place? You know, it's their journey, it's their story. So how much do you supposed to do for them or assist them? And it's hard being empaths for us to just sit back and watch it happen. And so...

Sarah Simone (44:50.447)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (44:58.542)
Right.

Amy (44:59.702)
you know, big circle, I think I can do, I can definitely love people, you know, lots of people, wherever they are in their journey. But my inner circle, I cannot, because it's just, I've worked too hard for the, you know, the wellbeing that I have created. And I really, I mean, I don't know, it sounds so, what does it sound? Does it sound arrogant and weird? But like, I fucking like,

Sarah Simone (45:15.592)
Hehehehe

Amy (45:29.694)
love myself, like I would hang out with myself all the time. I would take myself to dinner and to the movies and to this and go on vacation by myself. I enjoy myself that much. But this person, this woman I am today, I busted my ass to get to be her, you know? And that does not mean that there are not moments where I am like...

Sarah Simone (45:33.785)
Yeah.

Amy (45:55.362)
spending. I'll just confess it because I feel like now that I feel like you have to see both sides of things. Let's be authentic, right? So what was the last thing I obsessed over that I was like, I cannot believe I just spent two hours because I didn't like a picture of myself and I was like looking to see how cheaply I could get some plastic surgery to like get this chin off from underneath my face. And I was like, okay.

Sarah Simone (46:01.413)
Yeah, yeah.

Amy (46:22.726)
someone who loves themself and someone who's assured and who they are doesn't do that. So let's realize that we aren't always that way. And that even saying it out loud is really kind of comical. But I mean, that was the space I was in at the time. And so we have to give ourselves grace and be like, okay, at that moment, that's how I felt. And that's not a huge step back. It's just like a maybe.

Sarah Simone (46:30.84)
Right, right, yes. Yeah.

Sarah Simone (46:41.808)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (46:50.766)
Let's be okay with that next time you take a picture. Or not, don't be, whatever it is, but like reflecting and realizing, you know, that you didn't really do a good job loving your whole self there, and that's okay. So I'm not talking about perfection. I just, I want to be clear. Definitely am not that.

Sarah Simone (46:53.523)
Right.

Yeah.

Sarah Simone (47:11.96)
Sure. Yeah, for sure. I was actually going to say that right before you did, so I'm so glad you said it, because I was going to say, that doesn't mean that I don't occasionally say to Amy, don't put that picture up on me. I look terrible or whatever. And I don't think we need to also focus just on the physical, but that is mainly where I go personally, is the physical.

But I'm glad you said like you would hang out with you like that's more of like the love I think about too Like would you hang out with yourself? Would you be friends with you? and Another thing that we've said on here before but it's like Would you ever say to your friends or to your kids or anything the things that you say to yourself that you say about yourself? Would you say those to someone else? No, you would never say them. That's they're horribly mean. So stop it So I have to I have to tell myself that though, you know, like I have to remind myself of that

Amy (48:01.741)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (48:07.192)
And I'm making points for you at this point. So I need to get back on my bandwagon. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But what I want to say too, there was another nice quote that I wanted to talk about too that's also, this one is from, his name is Brian Dunn, he's a certified dating and relationship coach. And,

Amy (48:14.242)
Oh yeah, see how I did that folks? Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Sarah Simone (48:36.212)
He quotes Jerry Maguire, or doesn't quote it, but he talks about Jerry Maguire, which I think is cute. But he said, Jerry Maguire ruined romance and romantic ideals for a generation. We are not incomplete. We do not need someone else to quote complete us. We are not powerless. We are not helpless. No one is responsible for our lives and our happiness but ourselves. And there's a book called The Breakup Bootcamp by Amy Chan, and she describes this way.

Loving yourself is taking responsibility for your emotions and accepting that it's your job to feel all the things you've wanted to outsource to a partner. This means you are your own source of fulfillment, peace, safety, validation, and stability. And if you feel like you're lacking in these areas, loving yourself means doing the work to get there too. So this is, again, making a point towards you, but we're moving back. I promise.

We should love ourselves like we love a family member, friend or partner. We see them, love them, support them, show up for them and show them kindness and compassion, even and especially when they make mistakes or reveal their imperfections. We would never speak to someone we love the way that we're critical to ourselves in our own heads. We should strive to treat ourselves as kindly as we treat those around us. So this, he proposes the following, instead of saying to love someone else, first you must love yourself. Say this instead.

The more you know how to love yourself, the easier it will be to have a healthy, loving relationship with someone else. And so that's kind of the point that I feel like I wanna land on, which is in more of a gray area.

Amy (50:15.902)
Yeah, because it's all gray.

Amy (50:20.662)
Did I freeze? Did you freeze? Who's frozen?

Amy (50:26.742)
Which one's frozen? You? Me?

Sarah Simone (50:28.62)
Oh, you, yeah. You were frozen for a minute.

Amy (50:30.654)
Yeah. Yeah, you froze. I didn't hear much of what you said, but I heard we ended it gray.

Sarah Simone (50:41.188)
Basically, it's like semantics. Like, the more you know how to love yourself, the easier it will be to have a healthy, loving relationship with someone else. So saying that instead of to love someone else, you must first love yourself.

Amy (50:42.304)
Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Amy (50:55.59)
Yeah, I think the other thing is, and it's like, I think about myself younger, is the things, the things where we put up with, the things we allow are vast and deep and great when we don't necessarily know ourselves and love ourselves. I guess we didn't really talk about that because that's.

I guess I put them together and maybe they're not together, but if you don't know yourself, and I know knowing yourself at 19 is totally different than knowing yourself at 45, I get that, but if you don't have a sense of self, that's where it begins to get the sense of like and the sense of love. And so when you don't know any of those things, then you just put up with more shit. And some people are just born not putting up with it. Like...

they're just not going to do it. I just, my daughter is that way and I don't understand how do you just become that way where you just like have such high expectations of how people will treat you that you just don't put up with it. But I didn't, I put up with a lot. And it was because I so desperately wanted to be loved that I was like, well, I'll take it however I can get it. You know, and now...

having been through so much life and then also just really, really loving and liking myself. I'm like, nope. I got enough love for me, myself and I, I'm good.

Sarah Simone (52:29.828)
I think a lot of that is generational too. Like the way, the examples that we had growing up, like our movies and our TV shows and our examples of love that were set for us are vastly different than what our kids have available to them. And you know, I am so thankful for the badass women, you know, lead roles in movies and stuff that are not putting up with shit and they're just saying no. And there's all of these other.

Amy (52:50.261)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (52:58.8)
people out there on TikTok and teaching, saying like, no, we're not gonna put up with this. There are also terrible, terrible people out there on TikTok saying horrific things of the opposite. But yeah, I just think that the access to good examples of what is acceptable, and that's also a personal thing too. What is acceptable to you?

Amy (53:01.186)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (53:23.154)
Oh yeah, it's totally personal. What? Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Simone (53:25.244)
but there also is the bare minimum of being a decent fucking human being. And that shouldn't be like, that is the bare minimum. And if that is like, you have to ask for that, then that's not, you know, I would say that should be your baseline at least.

Amy (53:41.194)
Yeah, yeah, which makes sense and it lines up with it being, you know, if you listen to our last episode or two episodes ago, ins and outs, dating being out for 2024. Women are just done.

Sarah Simone (53:54.64)
I missed that, I'm sorry. Shit, what'd you say? I just wanna know what you said.

Amy (53:58.813)
It's okay. Yeah, yeah. So I said it kind of lines up with, well, actually let me say it again, because I messed up.

So that kind of lines up with our episode, I think two weeks ago, where we talked about the ins and outs for 2024 and dating just being out. The generation's just like, nope, not doing that anymore. But what I forgot to say that I wanted to say about, you talked about Jerry Maguire, I wanted to be like, Jerry Maguire created an entire generation of co-dependent people.

Sarah Simone (54:14.472)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Sarah Simone (54:28.749)
Yes!

Sarah Simone (54:32.632)
You complete me. Mmm. Mm-hmm. So did I.

Amy (54:32.638)
Yeah. I mean, I just thought that was the most romantic thing ever. And that was right around the time that I was like falling in love with my husband. And I just, oh, God, codependency is rough, man. Nope.

Sarah Simone (54:43.217)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (54:48.6)
It is. It really is. Yeah.

Amy (54:50.474)
Nope, nope, nope. I do not like it.

Sarah Simone (54:56.308)
No, it's a tough spot to be in. So, and it's easy to fall into too, I think, if you are in a solid relationship that's long-term. So it's something that you have to be careful of. Randy and I have gone in and out of codependency for probably our whole relationship because we spend a lot of time together. We also lived across the country without really anybody else. And so...

Amy (54:57.142)
Yeah.

Sarah Simone (55:22.112)
you know, that was something that we got into the habit of early and have to watch out for. So it's like finding out and discovery, discovering multiple times over who we are individually. And talking about that with each other is definitely helpful as well. And just being like, we just did this probably a few months ago. It was like, what are you passionate about? Like, what do you miss in your life that you feel passion for? And just talking about how we can make those things more prevalent in our lives individually.

Amy (55:33.964)
Mm-hmm.

Amy (55:46.303)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (55:52.072)
And it's just, it feels good. It's hard. It's hard to break.

Amy (55:54.498)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think keeping your individualism, even in a deeply loving relationship, is the key to having a lasting loving relationship.

Sarah Simone (56:02.556)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Amy (56:08.73)
from the unqualified. I just feel like I have to say that, because sometimes I feel like, who are you to say shit? Just shut up. But it's just me.

Sarah Simone (56:10.408)
I just feel like I have a...

Sarah Simone (56:18.512)
Yeah. So what do you guys think? What do you all think? What side of that do you lay on? Are you right in the middle in that gray area? Let us know. We would love to hear your thoughts on this whole topic, on this whole jazz.

Amy (56:31.895)
Yeah.

Amy (56:36.27)
It's a very interesting one. I'm glad you brought it up. I haven't thought about it. So I think that it's so good to revisit things that maybe you once believed or maybe that you just believe because you believe them. You've always believed them. So even though I land in the same spot, I think that having talked through it, thinking about it is always a good thing to do to really understand why, why do I think that? Is it just because somebody told me, you know, back when I was younger? I don't know.

Sarah Simone (56:48.154)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (56:59.452)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Simone (57:06.295)
Yeah. Right.

Amy (57:08.086)
Was it on the wall in my dorm room?

Sarah Simone (57:12.617)
As a quote that you cut out of a magazine and put on your board.

Amy (57:16.546)
Girl, I found pictures this weekend of my dorm and I was like, this is cheesy AF.

Sarah Simone (57:23.177)
Oh, I want to see pictures of my dorm. Maybe I can go find some. Take me back.

Amy (57:26.706)
Oh my gosh, I don't know what that says about a person. Take me back is right. Oh, but take me back as me now. This person who loves and likes herself, I want this person to get to experience freshman year. It'll be so much better.

Sarah Simone (57:35.546)
Yes, yes. Yes, please.

Sarah Simone (57:42.148)
Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. So much better. I spent my first week of freshman year crying myself to sleep. I did too. I was like, please don't make me do this. Yeah. My dad was like, just one semester. If you don't like it after your first semester, you don't have to stay. I was like, do you promise? He's like, yes. And I'm after first semester. I was like, all right, I'm good. Yeah.

Amy (57:49.71)
Oh, girl, same. I've tried to come home.

Amy (57:56.01)
I was like, I think I need to leave. I'm leaving now.

Amy (58:04.278)
Yep.

Amy (58:08.702)
Yeah, and then I never went home another summer. I was like, okay, bye. This is it. This is it for me. Oh, life.

Sarah Simone (58:19.336)
if we have anything we need to like talk about before we close out.

Amy (58:24.034)
Please God, please universe, become a Patreon. Please, if you like yourself at all.

Sarah Simone (58:26.792)
Please, please, I got to make it up. OK. If you like yourself enough to love us, head over to patreon.com slash Unqualified Therapist Sync and join our community over there. You'll get video episodes every time we record via video, which we're trying to do every single time now. You will get a video episode of us in all stages of.

Amy (58:38.181)
Right?

Sarah Simone (58:54.86)
Sarah and Amy disarray or put togetherness.

Amy (58:57.947)
You'll watch Amy glitch out 42 times.

Sarah Simone (59:01.272)
It doesn't though when you guys get it, it only glitches for us. So you're going to see her still talking and being nice and you know, going through it and me going, Oh, I'm making a face like, Oh, you froze. And I don't say anything though. Cause I'm like, I know you can hear it.

Amy (59:04.654)
See you.

Amy (59:11.133)
hahahaha

Amy (59:15.502)
I make faces too. That's so funny when you freeze. I'm like, yeah.

Sarah Simone (59:17.932)
Yeah. But you get all the goods over there. And we try to give you all the behind the scenes and the fun things along with yoga meditation and some guides and workbooks and other goodies. So with that being said, hopefully in 2024, you will join us in that community and get to be the first to know about our events for this year too. Hint, hint, wink, wink.

Amy (59:46.398)
Yeah, we really hope that you will head on over there and help us to keep these mics on because we love what we do. And hopefully we are, you know, even at least making you laugh a little bit in your car.

Sarah Simone (59:59.68)
That's the goal.

Amy (01:00:00.962)
That is the goal, that's our bare minimum. We hope that you have a wonderful week, Warriors, and that you stay wild.

Sarah Simone (01:00:03.267)
Yes.

Sarah Simone (01:00:07.68)
and weird. We love you.

Amy (01:00:10.462)
I didn't mean to say the name, sorry.

Sarah Simone (01:00:12.424)
It's okay.